Designing for the first impression

In the past 2 months we talked a lot with our customers and tried to understand their needs, habits and interactions about the Smart Slider 2. This way led us to change everything without changing anything. But what does it mean? And what does Smart Slider 2 make thousand times better than before?

The most important lesson that we have to learn that our customers don’t want to use Smart Slider 2. They want results. Oh and they want it fast. Everybody needs a good, reliable solution, which works simply. In the light of this, let’s see how we’ve improved the Smart Slider 2 and what are the new features:

New slider creation modes: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Smart

Lesson 1: Not the tool but the result is the key for a good product.

Firstly we had to innovate the process of the slider creation in a more intuitive and faster way. So we figured out 3 totally new interaction to create a slider:

Quick slider: It was designed to be as simply and fast to setup as it could be. Create an image slider in minutes. With this mode the new users can easily start to create something awesome. Guaranteed success under 2 minutes! Watch this video if you don’t belive!

Manual slider: The traditional way to build a slider from layers and items. Your imagination is the only limit for sliders! Firstly you can setup the slider then you can add slides. It’s ideal for the intermediate users.

Dynamic slider: Generate sliders from external sources into predefined layouts. Show the most popular products from your webshop, blog posts from a category or pictures from a folder. Read the documentation.

Import the demo sliders from the admin

Lesson 2: The best extension is that helps the customer to reach the goal as fast as possible.

Is here the deadline? Or are you extremely busy? Or just simply you don’t want to play with the layers? But you like what you see on our demo, don’t you? We’ve a good news for you! Here comes the Vodoo magic, because you can import all 30 sliders with ONE click (yes it’s really just one click). Check the video below!

New slider dashboard

Lesson 3: Keep it simple, stupid. Just keep it simple!

We know how important is the first impression, so we’ve created a totally new dashboard view for the slider. It’s going to help you to share the most important information about the actual slider. For example:

Live preview: Now it contains a slider live preview where you can see the whole slider with all widgets. (not just the slides)

Action button bar: These buttons on the top of the dashboard help you to reach the frequently used actions. For example: edit the slider, create new slide or export and so on…

Publish section: This part help you to publish the slider in three different way.

Left side: You can navigate between the slides and create instant actions for example: publish or delete.

New slider type: Showcase

With this new slider type you can show more than one slide at the same time and you can navigate between the slides without arrows. Also it has a cool 3D version of animation too. Check the Showcase examples on our demo site:

Image stripe: It’s an interesting example because the distance between the slides is zero. This slider has a horizontal main animation and the caption has a layer animation.

Posts and Articles: It’s very similar to the previous, just in this example there is 200px between the slides.

Movies: These two demo demonstrate how varied is the animation in the new slider type.

Showcase: These two demo help you understand how this slider type works with the slides.

The advanced responsive mode

In 2014 the simple downscaling is not equal to the responsive webdesign. Of course it can be perfect if you have slider only with images. But what if you have more content? For example two images, two paragraphs, a heading and a button item. Of course on a monitor your slider is fascinating, but on mobile you can’t show everything. In this case you have to re-think the slider and focus on the most important part. In my example you can see that I hide almost everything except the image, the title and the price. Probably these are the most important information for a user, who try to surf on your site on mobile. This feature is comfortably accessible from every slide editor, where you can switch between the device views. Check the corresponding video for this feature.

Magento Support

I think no one has to introduce the Magento ecommerce solution, the good news that finally Smart Slider 2 is available for the Magento users. Even more we prepared for the special challenges which are in the world of webshops. Check the product page and the product generator video if you’re interested in it.

Export as HTML

We know that plenty of our users use native HTML websites and CMS systems like Joomla and WordPress too. So we figured out that it could be really fantastic if you can export the sliders. Now it’s done. Create your slider easily under your favourite CMS then export and finally paste the codes into your HTML site.

Translation

We’re very glad because plenty of volunteer join to our translation projects. The result speak for themselves because now the Smart Slider 2 is available in 8 languages: English, Hungarian, French, German, Greek, Polish, Dutch, Spanish. Also 5 more is on the way. Feel free to join this project!

New documentations and video tutorials

With the ton of update we refresh a lot of documentation site, we tried to present every little details. Also because we received lot of emails we create few new videos, which are available in this playlist.

New new new

And last but not least here is a sort list about the latest features and news:

New cache system Totally new intelligent cache system for the sliders.

New arrow widget Six new arrow in the image arrow type.

New bar widget One new bar widget.

Global fontsize Three global fontsize for every device. It’s for the better readability on small screen.

Keyboard controls You can control your slider with the left and the right arrow.

Better touch controlComfortable slider handling for mobile device.

Widget improveFrom now all widget is separately manageable for every device.

Ton of Bugfix

I can honestly say that now the Smart Slider 2 is a mind-blowing extension. There’s no great product without love and obsession and we really like the Smart Slider 2. If you have some feedbacks please feel free to leave a comment!

All in all this is the story how we changed everything without changing anything.

we don’t have exact step by step documentation for all slider. But as you mentioned you can import them with one click. But if you want to know how I designed and built them, then feel free to write me to [email protected]

You have an INCREDIBLE slider. I just signed up for the $99 plan and couldn’t be happier! Is you offer to teach me step by step via skype or email available to? I will email you my draft site and product so you get an idea where I am heading. btw…gotta love the beach. i’d be tossing a frisbee.

Wish you to have more useful tips for Virtuemart users, Nextend Team. All that I can share currently in my VM related social groups is “Add custom icons” article. Have a good luck with your perfect solutions!

Hello Daniel. I’m a Joomla enthusiast and came across with Smart Slider 2. After using some free extensions I saw the potential of Smart Slider 2 and decided it will be the first and only Joomla extension to buy for now. I downloaded and tested the free trial version and got hypnotized immediately. The import/export as HTML feature has an enormous potential for an HTML-only site. After just one single day I decided that’s the only extension I’ll ever need, so I bought it immediately.
When I installed the free version I saw it was version 2.3.7 with almost everything disabled but with tons of options to choose from. When I downloaded the paid version I saw it was different and to my surprise I found the only available version for download in 2.1.1 which is from October 2013. I contacted support and sent some screenshots to explain my problem but Gabor kept saying they are the same when it is obvious they are not. I’m very anxious to test the new 2.3.7 version which is what I tested and what I was expecting for. I’ve sent some emails detailing that and I don’t want to give a bad score or a bad reputation on such a good product.
My question is simple: why don’t you send me the latest version but an old and outdated one and why you put such an old version for download when you are offering and talking about all the features the new version does?
I’m really confused and I’m starting to feel like cheated. I hope you will solve my problem.

I’ve sent you an email a minutes ago. Well, you bought a STARTER package in October which comes with 1 month download/upload/support period this is the reason why you can’t find tha latest version. This package includes a license which has one month donwload period. But of course we’re a very customer centrific team so you can find every little details about this case and an extra gift just for you.

Thank you Daniel, you are very responsive. I bought the license two days ago and that’s where I think lies the problem, that the system gave me a package as if I bought the license in October. I hope you will correct this error but thank you for sending me the correct version.

I just got the starter package and have been playing with it. Very impressive. A suggestion – could there be a looping option for the slider in the the Showcase mode. I think that mode should act as a carousel and run in a continuous loop. I’m having to duplicate slides so that it doesn’t appear to happen, at least not as often.

Is there a forum? Do you intend to set one up? It’d be great to have a place to see the advice you’ve given others.

A suggestion for the new version. I’m currently using the showcase mode with descriptions for each of the slides. While I get nice animation with the images and various items, there don’t seem to be any settings for the description. It simply changes abruptly when the slide approaches the front. The ability to fade in and out would help a lot. (Let me know if I’m missing something.)